


The End

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sickandtwisteddoc said: Olicity - Decapitation</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Felicity's POV

She feels more in the last five minutes of her life than she ever feels throughout the duration of her twenty-six years. Well, almost twenty-six. She almost made it. Her birthday isn’t until the thirty-first of May, and she’s pretty sure it’s closer to Oliver’s right now than her own. They’ve lost count of the days since they first arrived in Nanda Parbat. It’s hard to tell when it’s day or night when the place is always dark enough to require the light of far too many candles. Really, it’s remarkable that they haven’t experienced a fire by now. Then again, the walls are stone and the place is mostly made from sand, so there really isn’t much that would burn.

She knows from the moment they bring her League robes that she’s being lead to her death today.

Her and Oliver have been held captive by the League since she tried to break him out. The room they gave themselves to each other in, their sanctuary in this desert hell, becomes their prison. Their hands are bound to opposite bedposts, and each day they come to release Oliver and lead him away. Every day she fears he won’t return, but he does. She hears his screams while he’s gone, there are always more bruises, more wounds, and eventually his skin is more purpled grey than warm peach.

When they lead her away, they bathe her. It’s uncomfortable. They watch her. But they don’t hurt her, and she is hopeful for that until she catches the sympathetic glances of the young women who bathe her and she realises why.

She is not being pampered. She is being prepared.

They come on the eighth day with news. The majority of people in Starling City are dead. The virus killed them all. This hurts more knowing that they used the bodies of their friends and family as the catalysts for the virus. That night, when the room is dark and the candles have almost burned out, she cries. She cries for the newly restored Thea who wouldn’t get to appreciate her life. She cries for John, who wouldn’t get to hold his daughter again. She cries for Lyla and Sara, knowing that even if they made it out of the city before the virus took hold that they’d have to live without a huge part of their family. She cries for Roy, wherever he is, who would learn about their deaths on the news. She cries for Ray, who she knew would have tried to save the city until the very end. She cries for her mother, who would see the devastation of the city and know she’d never hear from her daughter again. She cries for Laurel, for Captain Lance, for everyone.

She cries for Oliver, who can’t afford to shed a tear even when everything is so hopeless.

The next morning, they bring her the most beautiful fabrics. Oliver croaks out a desperate “no” in a voice that is more a whining plea than anything else, but his words are ignored and then she realises this is it. Ra’s has exhausted every way to hurt Oliver, except for the last one.

His city is gone. His friends and family are dead. He has nothing more to live for. Nothing left to love.

Except for her.

She doesn’t cry when they dress her in front of Oliver, or even when they lead her away. She knows that this isn’t the last moment they’ll have together. Ra’s will want him to watch, and she’s rewarded with her own accomplishment, at least, when she’s lead outside to the sand dunes where she’s met by the entire company of the League, Ra’s himself and Oliver in his matching League robes.

She’s forced to her knees in front of them both, but she doesn’t bow her head. Ra’s wants Oliver to suffer, so he will draw out her pain. Disobedience will only earn her a swifter death and that will safe them both pain. She has no respect for this monster.

“Take my life,” Oliver insists, fighting his restraints. His voice sounds defeated, and that makes her give up hope altogether. Oliver is the only person now who could possibly save her. There is no one else left.

“I will,” Ra’s replies calmly. “After hers.”

He gives a signal and Oliver’s forced to his knees beside her. Before she can appreciate how much shorter than him she is even in this position, a hand on her neck pushes her down roughly. Her hands are restrained behind her back, and she groans in discomfort until she realises that this is it. Her last moments are to be filled with pain and she will never known comfort again.

Oliver is forced into a similar position, their heads lowered and facing one another on matching rock pedestals a foot off the ground. Ra’s is holding an axe that looks far more ceremonial than practical, and a gasp escapes her. She cries then. The tears come out because she is twenty-five years old she is frightened to die.

“Look at me.”

Oliver is calm in the acceptance of his death. His only reprieve now is that death will come for him quickly after he has to watch her die, but his eyes are darkened and tear-filled because he still has to watch that first. They have him pinned so he can’t avoid the sight. They have no more fight left in them.

It is time to die.

She finds his eyes through the tears streaming from her own, and his lips tighten together as he bites at them. She’ll never kiss them again. All the time they wasted, and all they had to show for it was one wonderful night. He’d kissed her like the world was ending, and now it was. Their world, at least. If they hadn’t had that night, if she hadn’t broken him free, if she’d just trusted him with the plan he later told her he had…

Sometimes the things you do for love are foolish.

“Don’t be scared,” he tells her, his eyes never leaving hers but she can see he’s consciously aware of the weapon out her eyesight now. “Don’t be scared, Felicity.”

The way he says her name makes her cry harder. This is the last time they’ll ever speak. She has so much to tell him, and no time. Ra’s wouldn’t pity them at the last moment. The intense kohl make-up they covered her in is slipping away from her eyes with every tear. “I don’t want to die,” she told him. “We were supposed to-”

“We will,” he assured her, his voice dipped for only her ears. “This life has taught me that nothing ends with death. Wherever we go after this, we will find each other,” he promises her. Maybe it’s a wishful thought at the end of one’s life, but she believes him. He has pinned his hopes that the people he has lost are in a better place, and he finally considers himself worthy enough to have earned a place there.

He would follow her anywhere.

“I love you,” she croaks out when she sees Ra’s come closer, and she can feel him standing right behind her.

“I love you too,” he tells her, his voice thick but steady.

She feels the touch of sharp metal against her throat as Ra’s prepares and she whimpers at the touch. “Oliver…”

“Close your eyes,” he tells her, and she stares at him first for one long moment. The last time she will ever look at Oliver Queen. She wishes she could have looked at him with the love and adoration she wanted to show him so freely, but in the end all she has to offer him is fear. He’s brave enough to hold back his tears until after she closes her eyes for the last time.

“Don’t be scared,” he tells her again, his voice filled with pain now. “It’s not going to hurt. You won’t feel it, I promise. It’s not going to hurt. Just keep your eyes closed, Felicity.”

The metal disappears, and she feels the air move.

This is it, she realises with an agonised gasp.

“Don’t be scared.”

She is scared. She is about to die. She will never see him again. She will never go home. There is nothing else left now but to die.

The air shifts again, Oliver’s voice chokes. Oh, god, this is it.

“I love—”


	2. Oliver's POV

He doesn’t feel much anymore. He shuts everything out, because what is coming can only cause him pain, and he isn’t sure he can take much more. Their friends are dead, their families are dead, mostly, and it’s only a matter of time now until Ra’s takes them from his misery and lays them to rest as well. He doesn’t believe those words, because what is coming, for them, will not be restful. It will not be a relief from this pain. It will hurt. It will destroy them long before it claims them. It will be a ceremony to dispel all the good they tried to bring back to the world, and piece by piece, it will tear them apart.

They sit just out of reach of one another. For the first two days he struggles with his bonds, but why bother? They know what he can and cannot escape from, and even if he could have escaped, where would they go? They would only die in the halls of Nanda Parbat, separated from one another, and his one solace right now is at least if they are to starve or dehydrate or succumb to whatever poisons might come in the the little food they receive, at least they are together.

Felicity stretches out her legs towards him. He tangles his feet with hers. It’s all the touch they can experience.

Each day they take him away first. On the first day he manages to kick the knee out from beneath a footsoldier who attempted to take her first and they never try it again. They lead him to chamber of nothing less than torture and they try to break him, try to dissolve him, and he takes it because he knows what he cannot stand to endure will be transferred to her.

They take her away anyway. He spends a fearful hour each day awaiting her return, dreading whatever punishment they may deliver to her, but all she returns with is an uncomfortable expression and an overwhelming perfumed scent that can only be the Eastern oils that Ra’s himself bathes in when he doesn’t repair himself with the Lazarus pit. There is only one reason why they would do this for her, and he cannot bring himself to tell her why. He thinks she knows, but when she tries to sleep in the darkness of a desert night, he cannot take his eyes off her restrained form in case this is when they come for her.

When they find out everyone is dead, she cries through the night. He can’t make a sound. She cries even harder when she sees that he can’t.

The next day, they bring in the ceremonial garments he’s only witnessed in passing, never in practice, and he knows this is it. This is the day he will lose her and he’s not ready. He will never be ready for this.

“No,” he whines, his voice broken from lack of use and sheer protest, but no one spares him a glance as they dress her in this elaborate fabrics except for Felicity, whose eyes find his and never waver. She knows. She doesn’t cry now, doesn’t shed a single tear, and he knows this woman better than he knows himself and he knows she’s trying to be brave for him. He wants her to cry. He wants her to scream and protest so much that maybe it even reminds Ra’s what it is to have a heart, to have mercy, that someone in this godforsaken land may take pity on her and allow her to live.

It won’t be enough.

He tugs on his retrains when they’re lead out into the empty dunes, surrounded by the League who will watch them die. He begs for his life to be taken in her place, pleads for her soul at the cost of his own while she is forced to her knees.

“Take my life,” he begs as his restraints dig into the heavily bruised skin on his wrists. He thinks one is broken, but what does that matter now? He is all she has left, the only person who remains to fight for the life of Felicity Smoak, and it starts to hit his stomach that this is it.

“I will,” Ra’s replies, far too calmly. “After hers.”

Oliver quickly finds himself on his knees beside her, and they’re roughly pushed down so they’re facing one another with their heads on the rocks. This will be an execution, not a murder, he realises that alone from the scratches in the rock face beside hers that signal how, exactly, they are going to die. She shifts in discomfort, he wonders how badly they threw her head against that rock before they turned his own, and then a golden glint off to the side reveals Ra’s holding the axe that will take their lives.

He looks away, looks at her, and sees the pure fear that has settled on her face. This isn’t what he wanted for her. This is what he’s always worked to protect her from.

“Look at me,” he says as calmly as he can manage. His eyes are damp, he can feel the tears he has held back for days settling at the thought of losing her, and he is pinned so that he won’t be able to look away. Ra’s wants him to watch her die. At least he knows that his death will come swiftly after hers. He will not mourn her for long before his own life is cut off.

This is how they die.

Together.

When she looks at him her own tears are falling quickly over her cheeks. He has to bit his lips together to stop him releasing sounds that will only panic her. He’ll never touch her again. Never hold her. Never kiss her. Never fall asleep with her in his arms. He’d only ever have years of lingered touches and regrets to mask a single night of serenity that he’d found with her. One night to hold her. One night to make love to her. One night to let her see how just how surely he loved her. He should have trusted her, should have told her his plan so they could have survived this and stopped Ra’s, but he had been so blinded by his need to protect her that he hadn’t reminded himself that he needed to trust her.

Sometimes the things you do for love are foolish.

“Don’t be scared,” he manages to tell her, his eyes never leaving her fearful ones because he can see Ra’s moving behind her now, and he isn’t sure how much longer she has. She’s afraid. All he can do for her now is try to ease that. “Don’t be scared, Felicity.”

She cries when he says her name. Something about her name has always seemed different on his lips, and the idea that he won’t be saying it ever again soon is just…painful. This the last time they’ll ever speak. He’s had days of confinement with her to think what his last words might be to her, and none of them seem like enough. He has so much to tell her, and not enough time.  “I don’t want to die,” she tells him. “We were supposed to-”

“We will,” he assures her, his voice soft because he will not make this moment beneficial for the men who have come to watch them die. He doesn’t want to hear about regrets because this is all they have. “This life has taught me that nothing ends with death,” he breathes out. “Wherever we go after this, we will find each other.”

It’s all he has to offer her, the hope that they will find each other when they have left this life. He wants to believe that his parents are in a better place, that his lost friends are at peace, and while he isn’t sure he deserves that kind of eternal peace, that heaven he isn’t sure he believes in, he needs there to be a better place for Felicity right now, and he needs to know he can be with her there.

He will follow her everywhere.

“I love you,” she tells him in a shattered tone, as Ra’s shadow covers her face.

“I love you too,” he whispers thickly. Ra’s is too close, too close, far too dangerous and far too close to the woman he loves, and she whimpers away with his name on her lips when he presses the sharp metal of the axe against her throat to prepare. “Close your eyes,” he tells her quickly, but before she does she stares at him.

He holds back his tears, fights back his fearful acceptance and gazes back at her. He loves her eyes. He’d wanted to spend a lifetime getting lost in them. He’s never seen such emotion as he has cradled in those beautiful, glittering orbs and now they shine with tears. These were the eyes he’d wanted to spend his life waking up to, the eyes he wanted to look into on his wedding day, the eyes that would cry when she held their children for the first time. Instead these are the eyes that stream tears onto her cheeks even as they close for the final time.

Part of the light goes out inside him.

“Don’t be scared,” he tells her again, and now that she isn’t seeing him he doesn’t have to hide any of his fear. His tears are coming strong, and it’s a struggle to keep his voice steady enough to speak, but this isn’t over yet and she has already lost the sight of him, he won’t allow her to lose his voice just yet. She can have that until the end. “It’s not going to hurt,” he assures her. It’s probably a lie, but it’s all he has. “You won’t feel it. I promise. It’s not going to hurt.”

He feels a touch of metal at his own throat. Ra’s is still over Felicity, and he meets Ra’s gaze for a brief moment and knows that he has selected Maseo to end Oliver’s life in punishment for his attempts to help them. Ra’s would far rather be known to take the woman Oliver loves than to be directly responsible for his death. At least he will lose her at the exact moment she loses him. They will go together.

At the end of it all, he will die with the woman he loves.

“Just keep your eyes closed, Felicity,” he gulps down the lump in his throat, because he doesn’t want her to open her eyes and see the axe at his throat.

The air shifts. Ra’s axe lifts and he knows Maseo’s has too. This is it.

They’re going to die now.

“Don’t be scared.”

He’s scared. He knows she is too. She is far too young, she deserves far better. She deserves to be far away from here, in a far nicer place, safe, warm, loved. She deserves to grow old with a family that adores her, beautiful children that look like her, grandchildren that will listen to her stories and people that love her.

That is what he wants for her.

But he is about to die. And he’s selfishly glad that he gets to die looking at her face.

The axe starts to lower. Felicity is going to die right in front of him. He wants Maseo’s arm to be heavier so he doesn’t see it.

Now, there’s only one thing left to say.

“I love—”

Ra’s axe hits. The woman he loves dies.

“–you.”

He follows her.

He’ll follow her anywhere.


End file.
